TCM Schedule for Saturday, January 9, 2021 -- TCM Spotlight: Flight of the Innocent

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, TCM has the usual Saturday matinee lineup of films and shorts. Then in primetime, TCM returns to the Essentials. Tonight, Ben Mankiewicz and special co-host Brad Bird are showing a pair of films that show the innocent trying to make a great escape. It sounds a bit weird, until you realize the first film is North by Northwest (1959). Then the penny drops! Enjoy!


6:15 AM -- The Angel Wore Red (1960)
1h 39m | Romance | TV-PG
A priest and a prostitute fall in love during the Spanish Civil War.
Director: Nunnally Johnson
Cast: Ava Gardner, Dirk Bogarde, Joseph Cotten

Although it had a press showing in London, this movie was such a huge financial disaster that it never got a release in the UK.


8:00 AM -- The Bookworm Turns (1940)
8m | Animation, Comedy, Family:
A crazed Dr. Jekyll switches out the brain of a crow for that of a bookworm.
Director: Hugh Harman
Cast: Mel Blanc

Follows The Bookworm (1939).


8:10 AM -- The Beach of Nazaré (1957)
8m | Documentary | TV-G
This short film focuses on the dress and customs of Nazaré, a fishing village on Portugal's Atlantic coast.
Director: Van Campen Heilner
Cast: Peter Roberts, Jerome Brondfield, Jack Davis

This is one of several short subjects, already in the can, and slated for release by RKO Radio Pictures as part of their Screenliners 1956-1957 season, but which received no theatrical distribution at the time, as a result of the demise of RKO. In 1994, they became part of the TCM library and, for the past 20+ years, finally saw the light of day through occasional airings on cable television.


8:19 AM -- Hong Kong (1937)
7m | Short, Documentary | TV-G
This short film focuses on the history, people and customs of Hong Kong.
Cast: James A. Fitzpatrick


8:27 AM -- Bulldog Drummond's Bride (1939)
56m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-G
Bulldog Drummond postpones his wedding to track down a band of bank robbers.
Director: James Hogan
Cast: John Howard, Heather Angel, H. B. Warner

This is one of 8 Bulldog Drummond adventures produced by Paramount in the late 1930s, and sold to Congress Films (II) in mid-1954 for re-release; Congress redesigned the opening and closing credits, in order to eliminate all evidence of Paramount's ownership, going so far as to even alter the copyright claimant statements on the title cards; Congress, in turn, sold the films to Governor Films for television syndication. Along the way, Paramount, having disowned the films, never bothered to renew the copyrights, and they fell into public domain, with the result that inferior VHS and DVD copies have been in distribution for many years, from a variety of sub-distributors who specialize in public domain material.


9:30 AM -- The New Adventures of Tarzan: Crossed Trails (1935)
25m | Action, Adventure
Tarzan goes to Guatemala to find his lost friend and help discover hidden treasure.
Director: Edward Kull, Wilbur McGaugh
Cast: Frank Baker, Bruce Bennett, Ula Holt

Episode two of twelve.


10:00 AM -- We're on Our Way to Rio (1944)
7m | Animation, Children, Comedy | TV-PG
Popeye and Bluto vie for Olive Oyl, the star singer and exotic Latin dancer in a Rio night club.
Director: Izzy Sparber (as I. Sparber), James Tyer (uncredited)
Cast: Dave Barry, Margie Hines, Jack Mercer

Although Margie Hines is credited with the voice of Olive Oyl in this short, in fact, the character here sings in excellent Portuguese for the first part of the song, and then in English in a thick Brazilian accent. The voice sounds nothing like Margie Hines or Mae Questel and may have in fact been that of the woman who did the samba dance movements for both Olive and Popeye.


10:08 AM -- Killer Leopard (1954)
1h 10m | Adventure | TV-PG
The jungle boy fights a rampaging cat to help a movie star find her missing husband.
Director: Ford Beebe
Cast: Johnny Sheffield, Beverly Garland, Donald Murphy

The penultimate entry in the 'Bomba' series.


11:30 AM -- One for the Book (1940)
18m | Short, Comedy | TV-G
Famous literary figures step out of the pages of books after dark.
Director: Roy Mack
Cast: Betty Hutton, Hal Sherman, Miriam Grahame


12:00 PM -- The Big Heat (1953)
1h 30m | Crime | TV-14
A police detective whose wife was killed by the mob teams with a scarred gangster's moll to bring down a powerful gangster.
Director: Fritz Lang
Cast: Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Jocelyn Brando

Based on the "Saturday Evening Post" serial (December 1952 to February 1953) and breakout novel "The Big Heat" (New York, 1953) by former Philadelphia crime reporter William P. McGivern.


1:45 PM -- Midnight Lace (1960)
1h 48m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
A young woman can't get anyone to believe she's being stalked.
Director: David Miller
Cast: Doris Day, Rex Harrison, John Gavin

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Costume Design, Color -- Irene

Doris Day's costumes for this film were created by Irene, a well-known, single-named designer who received her second Oscar nomination for her work here. Two years after working on Midnight Lace, Irene committed suicide, jumping from an upper floor window of Hollywood's Knickerbocker Hotel.


3:45 PM -- Family Plot (1976)
2h | Suspense/Mystery | TV-14
A phony psychic takes on a pair of kidnappers.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Karen Black, Bruce Dern, Barbara Harris

This is Sir Alfred Hitchcock's final movie, and its final shot was of a woman breaking the fourth wall by looking straight into the camera and winking at the audience. This was arguably a fitting coda to his career exemplifying the black humor that was prevalent in his movies.


6:00 PM -- King Kong (1933)
1h 40m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-PG
A film crew discovers the "eighth wonder of the world," a giant prehistoric ape, and brings him back to New York, where he wreaks havoc.
Director: Merian C. Cooper
Cast: Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot

Merian C. Cooper's first vision for the film was of a giant ape on top of the world's tallest building, fighting airplanes. He worked backward from there to develop the rest of the story.



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: PRIMETIME THEME -- FLIGHT OF THE INNOCENT



8:00 PM -- North by Northwest (1959)
2h 16m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
An advertising man is mistaken for a spy, triggering a deadly cross-country chase.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason

Nominee for Oscars for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- Ernest Lehman, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- William A. Horning, Robert F. Boyle, Merrill Pye, Henry Grace and Frank R. McKelvy, and Best Film Editing -- George Tomasini

The final shot of the train entering the tunnel is a sexual reference. Sir Alfred Hitchcock came up with the innuendo and considered it one of his finest, naughtiest achievements. Ernest Lehman's screenplay just ended with "the train heads off into the distance", or words to that effect. "There's no way I can take credit for (the tunnel)", Lehman said, adding: "Dammit."


10:30 PM -- Saboteur (1942)
1h 48m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
A young man accused of sabotage goes on the lam to prove his innocence.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Priscilla Lane, Robert Cummings, Otto Kruger

Sir Alfred Hitchcock was particularly distressed about not getting the villain he wanted. To convey the sense of these homegrown fascists being regular people, the ones you would least likely suspect, he wanted the very All-American former silent movie actor and Western star Harry Carey. However, Carey's wife Olive Carey was very indignant about the suggestion. Hitchcock told François Truffaut she said, "I am shocked that you should dare to offer my husband a part like this. After all, since Will Rogers' death, the youth of America have looked up to my husband!"


12:30 AM -- The Glass Key (1942)
1h 25m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-14
A hired gun and his gangster boss fall out over a woman.
Director: Stuart Heisler
Cast: Brian Donlevy, Veronica Lake, Alan Ladd

The always aloof Alan Ladd, a former laborer, preferred the friendship of film crew than other actors or studio execs. Yet he was able to form lasting friendships with a few of his costars, especially William Bendix. Bendix accidentally cold-cocked Ladd during a particularly vicious fight scene in this film. Ladd was so taken aback by the sincerity of Bendix's apologies that they formed an immediate and unlikely friendship. They even purchased homes across the street from one another at one point. According to Bendix's wife Tess, the bond was strained in later years after Ladd's wife and manager, Sue Carol, made an offhand remark about Bendix's lack of military service. Stuck in the middle, it would be a decade before the wounds healed between the two. By then, Ladd was career down and self-destructive, leaning heavily on Bendix, who was thriving out of town frequently in the 1960s with stage work. Bendix's heartbreak was evident in the wake of Ladd's premature death (and probable suicide) in January of 1964. Bendix's health failed quickly and he too died (of bronchial pneumonia) a week or so before Christmas that same year.


2:15 AM -- It Happened at the World's Fair (1963)
1h 45m | Musical | TV-G
A pilot's efforts to help a lost girl at the Seattle World's Fair lead to love.
Director: Norman Taurog
Cast: Elvis Presley, Joan O'Brien, Gary Lockwood

Kurt Russell, in his screen debut, plays the boy who kicks Elvis Presley's shins. Recalling the scene years later, Russell says that he didn't want to do it, as Elvis was such a huge star and Russell was a fan of his. He says that finally Elvis paid him $5 to do it. Russell would later go on to play Elvis in the TV movie, Elvis (1979). (And a point of personal privilege - my former brother-in-law and his sisters are supposedly in this film - if you see a teenaged girl in a wheelchair with her foot or leg in a cast, that's them!)


4:15 AM -- The Glass Slipper (1955)
1h 34m | Musical | TV-G
Musical adaptation of the story of Cinderella and her magical trip to the prince's ball.
Director: Charles Walters
Cast: Leslie Caron, Michael Wilding, Keenan Wynn

Tommy Rall, Jacques d'Amboise and James Mitchell were all considered for the role of Prince Charles. Michael Wilding, despite having no professional dance training, was cast due to the rash of publicity surrounding his marriage to fellow MGM contract player Elizabeth Taylor.